Happy Christmas Eve Eve

 Today was always one of my favourite days of the year. 

For us children it was a day of freedom and choice. Both parents were busy and we could choose to help or keep out of the way.

Keeping out of the way involved watching Shirley Temple films or reading books. Sometimes we would get out a puzzle book or just double check our televisual choices over the next two weeks that we had circled in the Radio Times. The main Christmas food shop had already been done and so the tray with nuts that you had to crack yourself and the box of ‘eat me’ dates were on the side. The Quality Street tin called to us, while we ignored the satsumas shouting, “You could eat me, I’d be more healthy.”

Mum was busy in the kitchen. There were mince pies, sausage rolls and the Yule log to make. Christmas cake decoration was accompanied by a glass of Harvey’s Bristol Cream and enthusiastic but poorly pitched carols. The preparations to feed up to 20 people during the day (and more in the evening when the neighbours joined us for a party that usually ended with a Monopoly argument) were endless. If we wanted then we were allowed to help in small, limited ways, for example sprout peeling. Generally though, I think I avoided mum during these preparations. She probably preferred not to be bothered by us. She wasn’t stressed on this day, though. It was the day she liked.

If I was going to help then I would become Dad’s right hand woman. His jobs were to go to the supermarket for the booze and to pick up the Turkey. If you think queues are long at the moment then you’ve forgotten what Christmas was like before online shopping. Dad and I would laugh at the people fighting over the last pack of streaky bacon. His calm, happy approach always stays with me on these occasions. I pushed the trolley while he filled it to the brim with alcohol and mixers. 

“A  couple of party sevens, Old Bob, Abbot ale, a bottle of gin for Nan, Whiskey for Uncle F, better get a few bottles of the Harvey’s Bristol Cream for your mum.Cointreau? Do you know what mum wanted Cointreau for?”

“The pudding I think?”

“Oh right. It’s better than wasting the brandy I suppose. That reminds me. Babycham. And those little bottles of snowballs.”

“Paul next door makes his snowballs with advocaat, they’re delicious,” I remind him, so he gets both. 

It seems odd now but in the Seventies in our house babycham and snowballs were considered to be children’s drinks. Adults could improve them by adding proper alcohol. Brandy and babycham was a particular favourite. 

Then we would spend a long time choosing the wine. 

“If you can’t afford the most expensive, you might as well buy the cheapest. That’s what Monsieur Cadeaux told us last year.”

Our holiday in a gîte had been a revelation for dad’s alcohol knowledge. Somehow, after my sister had a nosebleed and ruined a pillow and my dad had tried to explain in very broken French, he and the farmer spent quite a lot of time together, drinking. The wine and Calvados he had brought back hadn’t lasted long enough though. 

In the end he didn’t go for the cheapest. It was Christmas, after all.

In the mammoth queue that snaked down the cleaning product aisle, upsetting anyone who had left the major clean too late, we practised our Christmas cracker joke telling skills, played word games and watched people. 

The car, fully loaded and clanking when it turned the corners felt much slower and heavier than it had before. 

“Phew! That was hard work. It gets busier every year,” dad said, justifying the need to stop at the pub for a quick pint. I sat in the car and he brought me a coke with a straw and a bag of ready salted. 

Then it was on to the farm to collect the turkey. We drove down the track, bottles clinking with every bump and dip. Only a few weeks before the yard had been filled with live noisy birds, chattering about the weather and the silence was deafening. 

“Don’t think about it,” he told me, noticing the ashen look settling on my face.

When we got home the booze was unloaded into the garage before we noticed that my uncle had dropped off a surprise gift. 

“It’s a pheasant. Apparently he shot it and wants me to cook it for Christmas dinner. It’s still got feathers!”

These memories make me happy. Even the memory of my uncle saying, “I shot that,” ever time you lifted a bit of meet to your mouth,” with dad countering with, “I grew that,” with every vegetable eaten, is funny and makes me smile.

I wonder what kind of memories people will have from this Christmas. No one will be cooking for 20 or having the kind of party where people spill out onto the street to test their drunkenness by walking the white line in the centre of the road. But as memories from different years blend together one small Christmas is unlikely to stand out.

I expect that many of you will, like me, still be having a happy Christmas Eve Eve. I’m off to collect my Turkey before making mince pies, decorating my Christmas cake and still making enough food for 20.